


A Fairy-Tale, A Fancy-Flight

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Birthday Presents, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Loneliness, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2132952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian shouldn’t have to be alone on his birthday. Chris comes over with Starbucks and first kisses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fairy-Tale, A Fancy-Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [A Fairy-Tale, A Fancy-Flight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8346823) by [sashach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashach/pseuds/sashach)



> As ever, only doing this out of affection, no disrespect intended! 
> 
> Written fairly quickly in honor of Sebastian Stan's birthday.
> 
> Title from Dean Martin’s “Once Upon A Time,” this time: _it was a fantasy, a fairy-tale, a fancy-flight/ and then it all came true/ once upon a time, last night…_

It’s Sebastian’s birthday. He considers this fact pensively, leaning on the thin iron railing of his apartment’s balcony. It’s not a big balcony. Room for one or two chairs, a small table, his telescope if New York City night would ever permit stars any clarity through the neon shine.  
  
Most nights he doesn’t mind. He loves New York, the romanticism and the decadence, the emigrant hope and the theater glitz. He loves the heartbeat of the city, life zipping and rumbling and zooming and pounding through its veins.   
  
The night’s warm and sticky, as August nights so often are. Bronze-hued and humid and too handsy, heat trailing down his spine and sidling up to beckon sweat from tired pores. Two in the morning, and he’s got the air-conditioning turned on inside, he could step back and let it enfold him, but.  
  
Two in the morning, his birthday, one more birthday. He’d been out with friends earlier, dinner and drinks; the flavor of raspberry-lemon-cake-flavored vodka lingers over his tongue. Laughter like glitter-clouds before reluctant dispersal in the night.  
  
He’s not lonely. He knows he shouldn’t be lonely. He knows he’s not the best at not being lonely.  
  
He taps a fingertip over cool iron, registering the shape and curve of nighttime metal under skin. It brushes back with sleepy curiosity.   
  
He’s not lonely, because he does have friends these days, he has a career that the boy he’d once been couldn’t’ve even dreamed of, he has a mother and a stepfather he’ll be seeing tomorrow—today—once he heads upstate to that book-lined shabby-elegant swoop-gabled home.   
  
He watches the city lights shimmer and play in improbable hues. Chartreuse and vermilion and peridot. Primrose and yellow melancholy gold.   
  
Inside, his cellphone rings. He glances back through the open door; it rings again, pealing Sinatra into the air in mocking sweetness. Lately I find myself gazing at stars, it proclaims. Like someone in love.  
  
He wanders back in on the third line of the song and picks it up. “Chris?”  
  
“Hey.” Boston nights and freedom trails on the other end. Barely even a metaphor; Sebastian’s always thought that Chris sounds like freedom, like someone who knows how to laugh full-bodied and joyously. Chris speaks openly about his own anxiety and leans on friends and family and siblings when he’s in need of help. Sebastian’s honored to be one of those supports.  
  
“Hey,” Chris says again, no doubt because Sebastian hasn’t answered. “You busy?”  
  
“No. Aren’t you filming?”  
  
“Nah, got done a couple days ago. You’re still in New York, right?”  
  
“Yes.” He flops down onto his sofa, kicking off boots, letting one leg dangle to the floor. No one’s there to see. And he _likes_ being able to drape himself across his furniture. “At home. How’s Boston?”  
  
“Always awesome,” Chris says, “but I’m not there. Why aren’t you busy?”  
  
“Where are you? Do I have to come and rescue you from yet another mudslide?”  
  
“That only happened once,” Chris self-defends, “and you’re still going camping with me someday. Isn’t it your birthday?”  
  
“Convince me by not losing your tent in a stream, then.” He tips his head back against kindly cushions. “ _Mi-e dor de tine._ ” I miss you. I miss you, I’m glad you called, I like the sound of your voice in my ear.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Where are you, if you’re not at home?”  
  
“I know that’s not what you said. One hundred percent fuckin’ sure. Why aren’t you out conquering all the drinking games and singing eighties music on a karaoke stage, again?”  
  
“That was earlier. You’ve tragically missed out on my rendition of ‘Dancing With Myself.’ Don’t expect a repeat performance.”  
  
Chris is quiet for a second. “…‘Dancing With Myself.’”  
  
“Billy Idol? Don’t tell me I know more about American pop music than you do. Astonishing.”  
  
“No, I just meant—never mind. Of course I fuckin’ know Billy Idol. That’s insulting. You’ve insulted me. Are you okay?”  
  
This time Sebastian’s the one who says, “What?” because he’s not expecting the topic switch, so abrupt and heartfelt. Of course he should’ve been. Chris knows about emotion. Chris is a good man. Too good, shining and imperfect and courageous and golden. The best of this brave new world. The best person Sebastian’s ever known.  
  
“Come on,” Chris says. “Don’t lie to me, kid. Steve Rogers would cry.”  
  
Steve Rogers. Captain America. Another very good man.   
  
Sebastian, lying on his sofa in the silent refuge of his empty apartment—space, so much space, all his to fill up with whatever he wants, and maybe he’s sometimes gone a little overboard with books and classic movie posters and science-fiction memorabilia, but he’s never had space of his own before—closes his eyes.  
  
He’s not a good man. He tries to be. He tries to be strong and happy and appreciative and grateful for everything he’s been so fortunate to have. His mother’s fortitude. The life they’ve built in this second new country. His fans—he _has_ fans, and that continues to be shockingly wonderful. Chris as a friend.  
  
And he’s selfish and aching inside and exhausted, allowing himself to feel those things just for tonight, and he hates himself a little for that, in the face of Chris’s generous kindness over the phone. Chris is calling to wish him a happy birthday. Sebastian should smile and thank him and be genuinely thrilled that someone cares so much, and he is, he is.  
  
He just wants more.  
  
He just doesn’t want to feel alone.  
  
He just wants to lean into Chris’s strength and be held until he’s happy again, because he will be, he knows. Only difficult at this particular instant. Hard not to think about other birthdays, other lives, older lives, might’ve-beens. Nightmares his mother believes he’s gotten over. Childhood minglings of ogres and secret police, both big-eared and always listening and ready to crunch bones. The weariness of always having to _be_ happy, because anything less might seem like ungratefulness, which couldn’t be further from true.  
  
Chris is always amused when Sebastian speaks Romanian. That’s in part why he does it. For Chris. Because Chris is amused by him.  
  
“I’m fine,” he says. “ _Sunt bine_.”  
  
“Nope,” Chris says. “Not buyin’ it. So you’re not busy, then?”  
  
“I am talking to you, if that counts as such.”  
  
“Ouch.” Chris pauses. Says something to someone, muffled, in the background. Then: “Should that be an ouch? I honestly can’t tell whether you meant it to be.”  
  
“ _Nu_. No.” Sebastian lifts a hand. Wiggles fingers, idly playing Chopin in the air, to the silence, for the bustling lights outside. His mother’s a better pianist. He’s…good enough. “I like talking to you.”  
  
“Oh. You—oh.” Surprised, pleased, more than likely blushing at the compliment. Chris carries all those emotions so freely. Unafraid of showing his hand, cards on the table. Chris deserves someone equally unguarded. Equally bright.   
  
Chris says, plaintiveness exaggerated but no less real for that, “Come on, then, if you like talking to me, talk. Not a good birthday?”  
  
“It’s fine. I had fun. Where _are_ you?” There’s noise in the background. Chattering voices. A car horn beeping.  
  
“Walking. Why don’t you like birthdays?”  
  
Sebastian sits up. One leg curling under him. One of the couch-pillows decides to topple over, leaping off the cushion-cliff and onto the floor. He stares at it and resents the metaphor. “I don’t dislike birthdays. I’m only…”  
  
What? Thinking too much, wanting to wrap himself up in the night and pretend for a few stolen moments that he’s _always_ been as confident and fearless and happy as he generally is these days, that he knows nothing about how _hard_ being happy can be? Wanting for no easily explicable reason to cry?  
  
He shrugs even though Chris can’t see him. “I wish I had a better telescope.”  
  
This earns another pause. Fair enough; not as if his reply made much sense. He eyes the self-launching pillow again. At least it’s unharmed by the landing. Made of fluff and sapphire fuzziness.  
  
Chris asks, tone far more gentle than he’s expecting, “You like watching stars? Oh—of course you do, fuck, I remember that, you did say. You wanted to be an astronaut, you love the whole fuckin’ idea of living on Mars, you—I’m an idiot, I’m sorry. But that’s not what I meant. It’s probably too shiny, right? New York?” Chris sounds a bit out of breath, now. Perhaps walking faster.  
  
“I love New York,” Sebastian says, because it’s true. “I just…wish it were easier. Right now. When did I tell you about Mars?”  
  
“Um.” Now Chris sounds both breathless and guilty. “I…might’ve…you said it in an interview…why are there so many stairs…”  
  
“Stairs?” It’s better than _you watch my interviews?_ which is the question that’s begging to come out.  
  
“Stairs,” Chris agrees. “To your apartment.”  
  
“…to…my…wait _, what_?”  
  
“About that,” Chris says, and the knock bounces off his door and echoes giddily through all the no longer empty space.  
  
Sebastian flings himself to his feet, sprints across his living room, and yanks the door open, and then just ends up gazing at Chris Evans on the other side.  
  
“Hi,” Chris offers, and holds out a Starbucks cup. It wafts the beckoning scent of hazelnut chocolate coffee into the air. “Happy Birthday? I can totally buy you a telescope and also sing Billy Idol at you if you want, but there’s a Starbucks on the corner and you like Starbucks and I like you and I like seeing you smile and you’re kind of staring at me and I’m starting to think I should apologize or run away or something—”  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian interrupts.  
  
They gaze at each other for another eternal second. Chris tilts the Starbucks his direction. Sebastian takes it.   
  
“Ah…would you like…do you want to…come in?”  
  
“Sure?” Chris shifts weight, awkward and endearing and beautiful. “I mean, if you’re not…busy…”  
  
“I’m not busy. I told you I wasn’t.” He closes the door, turns around, hesitates. The familiar world of his apartment’s abruptly undiscovered territory. Chris is in it. Chris is here with him. “I—thank you. _Mulţumesc._ Why did you…why are you…can I get you a drink, or—?”  
  
“I missed you,” Chris says, standing in the middle of his living room, big hands starting a helpless gesture, stopping, noticing the forlorn abandoned pillow, picking it up. Tucking it back into place. “I just—I knew it was your birthday. When I called. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I wanted to see you, and maybe—I _am_ a fuckin’ idiot, I’m sorry, don’t listen to me talk.”  
  
“You brought me Starbucks,” Sebastian says, “at two in the morning, on my birthday,” and then, “also you rescued my pillow,” and then, “I like listening to you talk,” and somehow they’re standing right in front of each other, close enough for a breath or a touch or a first kiss.  
  
“You do?” Chris sounds dumbstruck by this revelation. “I mean, I say some pretty stupid shit—oh God I just said shit—in your living room—”  
  
“My living room’s heard worse.”   
  
“Yeah?” Chris lifts a hand, careful and slow, dreamlike as the unfurling of flower-petals in Central Park in spring. Sebastian holds his breath, clinging to the plastic cup with one hand, afraid that he’s going to awaken at any second; and then Chris’s fingertips touch his face, slide along his cheek, and it’s all real.  
  
“I think I said I like seein’ you smile,” Chris says, Boston heart showing the way it does when he’s nervous, when he’s emphatic, when it’s important. “If I didn’t I meant to. I like it when you smile.”  
  
“You make me want to smile,” Sebastian whispers, and Chris’s hand slips up to tangle in his hair and they both lean in and Chris’s lips find his.  
  
“I want to take you stargazing,” Chris whispers back, still kissing him, words finding space between kisses and lip-nibbles and exploratory licks and teases. “I want to take you someplace where it’s just us and the stars, and you can show me everything you can’t see from here, everything you want to see, and maybe I can make you want to smile more…”  
  
Sebastian, smiling more—and he _can_ want to smile, want to _laugh_ , while being kissed, and he’s never felt like this before, a kind of weightless headspinning incandescent joy settling into his bones—murmurs, “Are you trying to talk me into going camping with you _now?_ ” and Chris starts laughing into the kiss.  
  
“Is it going to work?”  
  
“Possibly. You might have to try harder. I may be in need of further persuasion.” He leans away enough to set _his_ Starbucks on the table. Chris tugs him back in, not letting go for a second, and observes, “You look happy,” and there’s a hint of question under the words.  
  
“I am,” Sebastian says, but stops, hearing the words. He is. Effortlessly so. With the tastes of hazelnut and coffee and sticky night air and Chris on his lips, in his soul. The city lights sparkle like affirmation in the distance. The couch-pillow beams. “I am. Now.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“I can’t—sometimes I’m not. Happy. Earlier tonight. I get—” He’s not sure why he’s telling Chris this. He’s never said it to anyone before. It’s important that Chris knows, though, and knows now. Before committing. “ _Singuratic_. Tired. Lonely. I don’t know.”  
  
“Yeah.” Chris’s eyes meet his, and don’t shy away. One of those large hands ventures up to touch his face again, cradling his cheek. “I kinda got that on the phone. Thank you for telling me.”  
  
“I’m not certain that deserves a thank you—”  
  
“Thank you for _trusting_ me.” Chris’s gaze is steady. So’s the hand cupping his cheek. “You don’t have to be happy all the fuckin’ time. I’d be way more worried if you were, you’d be, like, an actual alien or something, and then I might not be kissing you, or, no, I would anyway, ’cause you’re amazing. We’ll work it out. I panic when I have to meet with casting directors and you need to not feel alone and we can handle that, we can handle anything, and maybe you can kiss me like that one more time?”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says, and puts his arms around Chris’s waist, letting his hands learn the planes and valleys of taut muscle, the way Chris feels solid and strong under his palms and fingers. “Yes. Anything, including your potential aliens. We can.”


End file.
